For all you Mac fans, Apple just announced Mac OS X Lion, the eight major release of the world’s most advanced operating system.

It comes with more than 250 new features. It’s available today as a download from the Mac App Store

Go to the Apple store and check out:   OS X Lion

Good news for the Charlotte and surrounding area’s economy. Time Warner Cable is planning two new data centers in Charlotte, North Carolina and with the move come new jobs for different professionals.

The construction of the facilities expands upon the company’s already large presence in the state. According Time Warner Cable East Region VP of Operations Carol Hevey, the new jobs that the expansion provides will increase the presence of Time Warner Cable employees in the state to over 6,400.

The cable information centers will provide the company with deployment of their services including video and voice. The first facility is expected to be completed sometime next year while the second is expected to be completed by 2013.

Even the state’s top executive commented on the news. Included in the press release by Time Warner, Governor Bev Perdue stated, “Time Warner Cable’s sustained ability to grow in our state shows that we are providing the business environment, skilled workforce and infrastructure that businesses need.”

Time Warner Cable is headquartered in Manhattan, New York and is one the largest cable operators within the United States. In recent years North Carolina has been a popular area for data center construction. Such top companies having facilities in the state include Google and Apple. You can view an entire press release by Time Warner Cable here: http://ir.timewarnercable.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=207717&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1583891&highlight=

With Cable Information Center Plans, Time Warner Cable Expands NC Presence.

Thinking about starting your own business?

Binary On A Wire can help you with all your Website needs and online data services.

High tech solutions from a local company.

Call today.

855-WEB-0101

or visit
http://binaryonawire.com

NFL Merchandise

This is a great on-line store for football jerseys and NFL hats. Less expensive than other type Pro Shops.

Whether you pulling for Green Bay or Pittsburg Steelers, they have your team merchandise.

Check Them out.

This guitar holder is the best way to hang your electric or acoustic guitar. The holder is rubber coated and will not scratch your guitar or bass neck.

Mount a few guitar hangers on a decorative board and you will have nice studio display of your guitars. Another great reason for hanging your guitars or bass, it keeps them off the floor and away from pets and children.

You can buy these at your local music store or an online music store. The best place to buy your guitar wall hanger is on Amazon, they have different prices and styles available.

I tried to make mine, thinking I would save money, by the time I got the parts and my time to make them it is easier to buy them.

Check out Amazon Guitar Accessories

I have a couple clients ask me about strange emails they have received from facebook and how the email looked liked spam. I just wanted to remind people of a few basic things to watch for with online scams.

With millions of people using facebook it can be an easy target for internet scams and email phishing scams. Thieves are looking for any way to get you to click on their links or attachments so they can get to your personal information.

You can avoid becoming a victim of identity theft, by knowing how to spot red flags in scam messages:

Password changes – Facebook is NOT going to send you an email with a new password.  If Facebook suspects fraudulently activity with your account, they will send you a direct message to your Facebook account, and instruct you to go to your “Settings” button to change your password yourself.

Attachments/Links – You should always be suspicious of emails that instruct you to download an attachment or click on a link.  Attachments and links are the primary methods by which viruses, spyware and malware are spread.

Email address – If you only have your personal email address on your Facebook account and you get a “Facebook” email on your business, you should be suspicious and not open the email.

Grammar, punctuation and typos – The grammar and incorrect punctuation used in the latest email scam indicates that English is probably not the sender’s first language. “Dear user of Facebook” is an example.  It would be more appropriate to say “Dear Facebook User”.  Grammatical errors and awkward phrasing are tips that the sender is probably in another country and that the email is a scam.

Simple advice to keep you safe online:

• Delete any suspicious emails as soon as you receive them.
• Do not click on any links in strange emails.
• Do not download any attachments.
• Do not call any telephone numbers that may be in the email.
• Protect your computer with a good quality, up-to-date, anti-virus software program.

Example of facebook scam email:

Dear user of facebook.

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.

You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,

Your Facebook.

Most Facebook users are young people, I think parents should talk to their children about Facebook scams and how to spot them.  Young people are good with computers, and can learn how to avoid scams.

I like to use the Mozilla Firefox web browser and post about the add-ons available. This is by far a better internet web browser than IE and is very customizable.

This post is about making the text bigger in your address bar. Making the font larger can make it easier to read and less strain on your eyes.

Your address bar is where you type in your URL or website address.  “www.cnn.com”

After you install this add-on for Firefox your address bar text will be larger like this:

Before

and then after

Download this add-on directly from the Firefox site:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/97405/

Anti virus software can be installed in you computer and used to detect and prevent computer viruses, worms, and trojan horses. With all the internet threats today having protection for your computer is a must. I suggest everyone have some type of anti virus program.

Most anti virus will check the boot records of your hard drive when you start your computer. They will also continuously check while you are surfing the net and when you receive email. Scheduling “system scans” at times when you are not using your computer will help with system performance.

Selecting anti virus software

When selecting anti virus software I usually think of price and performance. There are free anti virus programs you can download and use, they are free and usually limited. The big companies like Norton Antivirus and McAfee are the most costly and usually take a lot of system resources (computer power) to run. I have used both and dislike them and find them to be annoying to use.

There are software suites that provide great internet protection and anti virus like CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2010

Renewal cost

When you purchase this type of software you are also paying for a subscription service. These are the updates the anti virus company gives you to stay current with the ever changing viruses. This is the best part about paying for this type of service. There are always new viruses and spyware developed everyday. Keeping your subscription up to date is important and worth every penny.

Free anti virus

I have had good experiences with these free anti virus programs on some home computers.

AVG free antivirus
Avira free antivirus

Keep yourself protected

Get yourself a descent AV program and keep it up to date.

Remember to always keep a back-up of your important files.

How to make secure strong password policies for your internet security.

Now a days people are using the internet for more things than just looking up something. More and more people use the web to access their bank accounts, pay bills online, check stocks, and access social media sites like twitter and facebook. Having so many on line accounts can be confusing.

It is common for people to use easy to remember passwords to help them remember what there passwords are for all the different sites they need to log into. This easy to remember strategy can be dangerous, and sometimes costly.

Learn how to make secure passwords.

Internet Security

If I know your birthday and dogs name I probably can get into at least one of your online accounts, right? Online security is not something you should take lightly by using simple passwords. Using “sammy1″ as your password to protect your bank account is a bad idea when your dogs name is Sammy.

Here are a few basic rules or “password policies” to remember when making your passwords.

Password rules:

• Do not use dictionary words
• Use upper and lowercase letters
• Mix numbers in between your letters
• Use special characters like:  ! @ $ % ^ & *
• Change your passwords frequently
• Use characters or numbers to replace a letter like: “bOb$mith”
• Make up words only you would know

A good example of a strong password:  tL*5i?wu

Cyber Security

Making your strong passwords will not be easy at first but you need to put a little effort into your internet privacy to protect yourself from internet scams and identity theft.

If you have a lot of passwords to remember you could store them on a thumb drive (password protected) and put it on your key ring or another safe place.

Are you tired of receiving all that junk mail in your inbox? That junk email, or better know as spam email, is flooding the internet and mail severs everywhere. This puts a strain on the data centers and their servers. You can reduce the amount of spam mail you receive by following a few easy rules.

Most spam is usually advertising for ‘get rich schemes’ and other bogus offers. Internet mailing list are either bought or stolen from Usenet groups or discussion forums.

Here is a list of a few east steps to fight against spam.

1. Don’t click on links in a spam email.
   These links can be disguised to look like legitimate links when they are harmful.
2. Don’t use your personal email address when you sign up on the internet.
   If you sign up for newsletters, web sites, or forums us a free email like Yahoo.
3. Before you sign up make sure the site will not sell your address.
   Take the time to read the site’s privacy policy and make sure you can opt out.
4. Look at your email before you open it.
   Most email clients can preview the messages before you open it. Once you open an email this can trigger a virus or worm.
5. Don’t use your email address as your screen name in chat rooms.
   This will make it easy for email harvesters to get your address.
6. Don’t forward email with a large list of recipients.
   You know those “forward to 10 of your friends” emails. These are perfect for spammers to get a list of addresses.
7. Use a spam filter.
   Block domains and IP addresses from email you always receive email from.
8. Call you ISP (internet service provider) or web host.
   Ask them to adjust their email filters.

Your email host at your ISP can apply spam filters on their mail servers to block certain IPs and domains you keep receiving junk from.

At Binary On A Wire we use SpamAssassin and Black Lists (and a few other methods) on our email servers to block spam mail.

The CAN-SPAM law

The Federal Trade Commission’s recent law enforcement actions against deceptive commercial email.  read more at: http://www.ftc.gov/spam/

Don’t log in to facebook using http://www.facebook.com

When you log in to facebook your user name and password are sent in plain text format. The information is not encrypted and can be read by anyone watching. This is especially true if you are using a wireless internet connection.

Log in to facebook using SSL encryption. Simply add an”s” to the “http”. The web address would look like this:   https://www.facebook.com

After you type this address into your address bar and press enter, save it to your bookmarks (or favorites).

Another secure log in page for facebook is:
https://login.facebook.com/login.php

Once again save this to your bookmarks (or favorites) to avoid typing it every time.

You will know you are sending encrypted information, and your information is safe, if you see the pad lock in the status bar (bottom right corner) of your web browser.

Please Note:
This log in technique only encrypts your user name and password when you initially log in. Once you are in your account the information transmitted is no longer encrypted. Use caution what you transmit especially when using a wireless internet connection.

Securing your log in password is a great start to securing your information.

To learn more about SSL security certificates and how they work visit:

http://binaryonawire.com/resources/ssl_certificates/

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